Overview:

Eighty percent of performance issues occur at the front end or browser level. Therefore, the key to faster websites and web-based applications is to improve front-end performance and optimize each page's code for faster rendering in the browser. In the past, front-end optimization (FEO) was time consuming and could only be performed manually by developers with specific performance expertise. Radware's FastView transforms FEO from a lengthy and complex coding process to an automated function performed in real time that accelerates web application response time out-of-the-box.

FastView: Industry-Leading Web Performance Optimization Solution

There are several best practices and rules organizations should follow in order to optimize web performance. FastView automatically applies these performance rules across the website or web application to immediately deliver faster page-load times.

This results in happier users, increased conversions, higher revenues, improved search engine results, and more productive employees. In addition, the development team can focus on building new features rather than optimizing website code for faster web application response time. FastView automates the performance optimization task and reduces new application's time to market.

What Does FastView Do?

Slow load times have been known to negatively impact a variety of business metrics such as on eCommerce websites. Time is money and customers don't use slow sites. A one second delay in page time equals a 7% loss in conversions, 11% fewer page views and 16% decrease in customer satisfaction. Faster is better and your website and web-based applications need to be lightning quick or you will lose customers and revenue.

FastView is a web performance optimization (WPO) solution that enables faster websites and web-based applications. It transforms front-end optimization (FEO) from a lengthy and complex process to an automated function. This FEO is performed in real time, accelerating web application response time out-of-the-box.

And since we believe that application acceleration and FEO are essential components of a next generation application delivery controller (ADC), FastView integrates into our Alteon NG ADC.

FastView for SAP accelerates SAP applications over WAN at near LAN speeds - on top of existing LB and WOC solutions. It provides up to 10x faster response time for remote users and is the only solution that accelerates SAPGUI and WebGUI.

What Makes FastView Better?

Accelerates modern and legacy browsers – automatically creates different HTML for different browser types

Only technology to accelerate performance for both fixed and mobile clients

Accelerates the entire transaction, not just one page at a time

5 Critical Performance Bottlenecks Solved

Radware's FastView solution employs a unique and holistic approach to accelerate web applications by solving several performance bottlenecks. Here are a few examples:

Simplified large, complex web pages.
The average web page is a staggering 1950k and contains over 90 objects1. It takes dozens of requests to the server to retrieve the page's content, making the overall page load time slower. Though there are several coding best practices for reducing the number of server roundtrips and making pages smaller, implementing these is a never-ending task. FastView automatically applies these best practices across the website or web application, making each page as fast as possible.

Accelerate entire web transactions.
Using a behavioral analysis algorithm, FastView automatically learns the browsing patterns of end-users on the website it accelerates, and understands which web page users are likely to visit next. While the end user is busy interacting with the current page, FastView preloads objects to the browser's cache required for the next page the end user is likely to visit next. This way when the user eventually visits that page it will load instantaneously. This technique significantly accelerates the entire transaction for end users on most web sites, devices and browsers.

Image optimization.
A typical web page consists of over 50 images that represent over 60% of a typical web page's payload2. Recent studies show that most websites either fail to optimize images or do a very poor job at it3. Using PerfectImage algorithm, FastView typically compresses images by 60-80%, resulting in a significant reduction of accelerated web pages payload and ultimately increased page load times. PerfectImage optimizes images on the fly; ensuring image quality is degraded by up to 1.5% for desktops and by up to 3.5% for mobile devices (a degradation amount which is invisible to the human eye). It also uses the most effective image compression format according to the type of browser requesting it (adjusting the image type, e.g. JPG for IE, or WebP for Chrome).

Dynamic discovery of resources requested by code running on the client side.
Several websites use java scripts (JS) and CSS templates in web pages which request objects and images as part of the page's representation. FastView emulates the browsers' behavior, executing browser side code and enabling it to discover objects dynamically requested by the browser. FastView can then apply its acceleration treatments on those resources (such as image optimization and preloading). This capability significantly increases the amount of acceleration that can be applied on typical web pages and on single page application sites which requests the web page's content through JSs and CSSs.

Recognizing that not all browsers are created equal.
Each browser type has its own preference as to how it renders pages, how many connections are opened, etc. Techniques that work for one browser type can slow down, or even break pages in a different browser. FastView creates custom optimization templates for each browser, making pages load in the most efficient way possible on each browser type.

Best Acceleration for Mobile Clients and the Mobile Workforce

When it comes to mobile clients, many of the performance problems that plague desktop clients still apply. However, there are inherent characteristics in mobile clients that make the application acceleration treatments different. For instance, a traditional browser cache in mobile clients is limited in size, making traditional browser caching difficult and ineffective. As a result, FastView uses the scaffolding of HTML5 local storage to offer a mobile browser cache that is comparable to the desktop browser cache. Mobile Super Cache, enabled through Radware's FastView solution, offers site owners the ability to configure persistent, reliable storage for caching objects from its site on mobile devices and enables significant acceleration for mobile users.

The form factor of mobile platforms presents new opportunities for acceleration that enhance certain techniques. For example, image compression with FastView's PerfectImage, not only reduces the payload of images, but also reduces the mobile data bill that lowers data transfer. With PerfectImage, image compression can be applied based on the characteristics of a handheld device; while degrees of variance can also be applied based on whether the device is a phone or a tablet.

Business Benefits:

Improving online business metrics:
Each second reduced with Radware's FastView immediately translates to improved online business metrics:

More page views

Higher conversion rates

Increased customer satisfaction

Higher revenues

Faster time to market new applications and services:
By automating the performance optimization task, the development cycle of new applications and services doesn't need to go through the tedious, extended phase of performance optimization. Instead it quickly moves to production with superior performance with FastView's advanced and adaptive acceleration capabilities.

Optimize development resources:
FastView not only optimizes application performance; but it also optimizes the development. It allows the development team to focus on creating core functionalities required for business, rather than optimizing code for faster response time. FastView automatically adapts to application changes, and updates its capabilities with every new browser version so that development teams aren't required to spend any time or effort on application performance optimization.

Deployment:

Flexible Deployment Models

Whether web applications run from a personal datacenter or hosted on a cloud or whether it uses a CDN service or not, FastView delivers acceleration to all types of web application deployment scenarios through a variety of deployment models. It can be deployed as a hardware appliance in the data center or software/virtual appliance in the data center that front ends applications with seamless capacity scalability and high availability options.

Figure 1 - deployment models in the data center

Web Performance Optimization as a Service – Acceleration Without the Hassle

To benefit from the acceleration and performance improvements FastView offers, but avoid the CAPEX investment and installation hassle of an in-house dedicated appliance (or virtual appliances), Radware offers FastView as a cloud service – with full support from start to finish and includes:

Full FastView acceleration optimization for the web application (whether installed in the customer's datacenter or in the cloud)

Traffic redirection with full high availability (HA) configuration

Ongoing acceleration for production traffic

Figure 2 - FastView deployment model in the cloud

FastView service requires minimal to no resource investment from the customer side for the initial setup and ongoing operation. It doesn't require an initial CAPEX investment as it can be purchased based on an OPEX model with monthly charges per the number of pages accessed through the FastView acceleration service.